Mozilla Campus Clubs

Hello Mozillian !

At this end of October 2016 , I’ve been in Casablanca in Morocco for 4 days to attend the Mozilla Arabic Gathering 2016. Roughly 30 Mozillians were present to discuss the new Mozilla projects and to make our strategy for the next years . I wrote a blog post to summarize what we’ve done , you can check it here .

In this article , I’ll dive into the details of the Mozilla Campus Clubs session that has been presented by Christos in the Mozilla Arabic Gathering 2016 .

 

 

The Mozilla Campus Clubs definition

A quick definition for a Mozilla Campus Club would be :

“A group of people who meet regularly to teach , learn , discuss  …. Simply , to make a difference in the Web ” .

Why Mozilla created this new program ? We already have the FSA !

Before talking about this new born project , I would like to give you some historical information .

Mozilla has started a project called “Firefox Student Ambassadors” or FSA . It’s a project that focuses mainly on the Firefox browser . As an FSA , our main mission was to teach students about Firefox . This project has some points that should be improved like the reporting . Mozilla doesn’t have a clear idea about what an FSA did or what he is planning for . Another very important thing , everyone could become an FSA simply by submitting an online form , without any courses or any coaching , he will talk to people about the Mozilla mission . I thing that could cause some problems because not every student knows well about the Mozilla mission and the Mozilla principles .

Given all the above points , Mozilla start thinking how it could improve the FSA program and how to make the Mozillian mission easier . And PAM PAM ! It announced the Mozilla Campus Clubs !

What is a Mozilla Campus Club ?

As we defined it above , it’s a group of people passionate about technology ,  not only the Mozilla products ,  who help each others to learn and to advance their knowledge . And as its name indicates , is focusing on the universities and the students . It’s founded by student , in a student campus , to the students ! It couldn’t be better !

Mozilla is committed to keep the web open , safe and accessible to everyone . So , a campus club is the better solution to spread the web literacy and to fuel the student innovation .

Mozilla Campus Clubs doesn’t require any expensive resources to run :  a venue (it could be any place clean , safe and accessible) , and some members are enough to do a great job.Because the main goal of a Mozilla Campus Club is not gathering as much resources and swags as you can , but it’s learning and teaching as much as you can !

As I mentioned above , the FSA program doesn’t offer any resources or coaching that helps students spread the Mozilla mission effectively . That’s why before starting his Mozilla Campus Club , the Club captain (The club founder / leader ) should follow an online course made by Mozilla that covers everything he should know. As of the time of writing this article , I’m still following the course and personally  I liked it so much but it can be improved by focusing more on visual materials (videos , pictures ) instead of text .

Why should I start a Mozilla Campus Club ?

Mozilla specifically and the open source in general , is based on sharing : sharing experience , sharing knowledge , sharing ideas …. sharing everything that could help others .

This fully aligns with the Mozilla Campus Clubs goal which is based on the same principle : Sharing .

Personally , and according to my personal experience , I think that teaching others about something makes you master it better and the audience questions will make you more excited to learn new things .

I want to start a Mozilla Campus Club , what should I do ?

Before starting a club , I highly encourage you to follow the Mozilla course , it will give you a clear vision about Mozilla mission and principles because you should be able to answer all the students questions and help them understand what is Mozilla .

If you are asking how to start it , all the process is mentioned in the Mozilla Campus Clubs website , every step is detailed .

Briefly …

A Mozilla Campus Clubs is a group of people that meet in a safe / clean place to teach and learn technology . Every student who want to join this program , will be certainly guided by Mozilla so he will never be lost .

I’m very thankful to a great person  who gave me all those information during the Mozilla Arabic Gathering 2016 in Morocco  : It’s Christos Bacharakis , from Mozilla . Thank you once again 🙂

I hope that the Mozilla Campus Club program will help students from all around the world to learn new things and I hope that it will be the manufacturer for a new fleet of developers , open web fighters , and of course new Mozillians !